Follow all our Best of 2014 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

A few months ago, I read an interesting interview with an artist named Nouela. You probably haven’t heard of her, but you may have heard her music. She’s become a specialist in a weird but growing niche: covers recorded for movie and television trailers. Whether doing a piano “Sound of Silence” to promote a new HBO show or a brooding “Black Hole Sun” to promote Liam Neeson punching people, she’s found a quickly-growing way of getting her covers out there.

It struck me as part of a growing trend we’ve seen. More and more great covers seem to come from unexpected places. Sure, you’ve got still your standby sources, your b-sides, tribute albums, and radio shows. But new avenues for covers have increasingly crept in. This year saw a Sam Smith cover that is only available to hear under Grey’s Anatomy dialog (thankfully he’s recorded a few live versions too) and a whole covers album recorded to plug a Canadian TV show. Brands have fully embraced covers too, most recently My Morning Jacket’s “This Land Is Your Land” recorded for North Face ads, or Charli XCX and Bleachers trading covers for Kia.

We don’t care where they originated when we make our year-end lists, though, and we would up with some of everything. In our top five alone, we’ve got a live radio session, a deluxe-edition bonus track, and a cover hiding in plain sight on one of the most acclaimed country records of the year. You have to keep an eye on more places than ever to spot the best covers these days. Wherever they come from, we’re glad to have ‘em.

Click on over to page two to begin our countdown, and thanks for reading.

Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.

Dan Bern should not be under anyone’s radar. Not only is he an incredibly prolific songwriter — only a small fraction of the thousand or so that he has acknowledged writing have been officially released — he is also an artist, a poet, a novelist, a children’s book author, and a filmmaker. His stage banter and lyrics are funny enough that he could definitely do standup. He has written songs for movies and television, and is a pioneer in online performing. He tours constantly, and what with all of those songs, he probably never plays the same set twice.Continue reading »

Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.

Here at Cover Me Q&A, we’ll be taking questions about cover songs and giving as many different answers as we can. This will give us a chance to hold forth on covers we might not otherwise get to talk about, to give Cover Me readers a chance to learn more about individual staffers’ tastes and writing styles, and to provide an opportunity for some back-and-forth, as we’ll be taking requests (learn how to do so at feature’s end).

They Say It’s Your Birthday celebrates an artist’s special day with other people singing his or her songs. Let others do the work for a while. Happy birthday!

When it comes to religion and spirituality, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. The paint-by-numbers elements of most religious rituals leave me cold. I am not moved by scripture, nor am I frightened by hellfire and brimstone preachers – all fury, self-righteousness, and condemnation, their empty words matched by their outstretched empty palms.

In my darker and much more cynical moments, I wrestle with the notion of a human soul. Does a soul really exist, or is it something that we conjured up to serve as a salve?

Kathleen Edwards has covered Bruce Springsteen’s “Human Touch” live a number of times, usually with the assistance of Jenn Grant, a frequent touring companion. The online YouTube versions are okay, but suffer from less than stellar performances or shaky recording. Apparently, that almost perfect performance has been tucked away in the record vaults. Edwards recently decided to share it with her fans via a Facebook post.Continue reading »

Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” has been misinterpreted many times by casual listeners, politicians and fist-pumping audience members. The rock anthem’s buoyant arrangement, designed for arenas in the 1980s, and the simplicity of the single line chorus, make it easy to overlook the verses that describe the hardships and challenges faced by veterans of the Vietnam War.Continue reading »

Bruce Springsteen’s “Drive All Night” is a heart wrenching tune – a slow, meandering, soulful eight minutes and twenty seven seconds of gritty Bruce to tug at your heartstrings. Recently, Glen Hansard covered this song, using his trademark impassioned vocals to try and work up to Bruce’s level of intensity. It’s a fantastic cover (with an Eddie Vedder appearance to boot), and on its heels comes yet another emotionally driven cover of the tune.Continue reading »

Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.

Chuck Prophet is the classic “under the radar” artist. He’s a musician who has been recording for nearly 30 years – first with Green on Red, a band that seems more respected in its absence than it was recognized during its existence, and then as a solo act, in which a small handful of his impressive songs have barely nudged into public consciousness. He has been a successful songwriter for hire, a sought-after sideman, and has a number of higher-profile admirers. His music is generally well reviewed, and he tours regularly and successfully. Although we at Cover Me are not privy to his tax returns, it is probably safe to say that he makes a pretty good living at the music thing, but that he isn’t using hundreds to light his smokes.Continue reading »